From: Pete Albrecht
Newsgroups: rec.crafts.metalworking
Subject: Re: Editing quality in HSM
Date: 6 Sep 1998 20:20:14 GMT

Ron Bean asked

>Also, what kind of distribution do European automotive books get
>in the US? (My main source is the Classic Motorbooks catalog,
>which carries some European books but not that many).

I'm talking about the same title, on one hand printed in German with a limited
market of a bit over 100 million people (Germany, Austria, part of Switzerland,
parts of Belgium, France, and Luxembourg); and on the other hand a
U.S.-produced translation.  In the same time frame, one book is in its third
printing, at 10,000 books per print run, in the German market. The same title,
translated into English and serving the United States, Britain, Australia, New
Zealand, Canada, South Africa, and all those other places where the sun never
set, has sold all of 3000 copies. The topic is Porsche, certainly of interest
to readers outside Europe, seeing as most of the cars are exported anyway.

One reason the book doesn't sell as well as it could is price. Another is that
Motorbooks prefers to push its own products into the bookstores, to the
detriment of books from independent publishers. But because most bookstores
just stock their car/aviation/motorcycle section by picking through the
Motorbooks wholesale catalog, with emphasis on whatever is on special this
month, a lot of good stuff never makes it to the retail shelves and you have to
specifically order it.

It also explains why American bookstores stock bizarre things like the history
of the Peugeot 205, a boring little box that was never sold here and whose
history will find absolutely no interest among buyers.

The major wholesalers, Ingram and Baker & Taylor, just get their automotive
titles from Motorbooks. I have seen brand-new books from independent publishers
listed as "out of print" in the offical B&T or Ingram CD-ROM catalogs because
the wholesalers just don't want to deal with a small press.

Pete

From: Dave Baker
Subject: Re: Peugeot 205 1.9 GTi
Date: 18 Feb 1999
Newsgroups: uk.rec.cars.maintenance

>From: "Lewis Lawrence" <lewis@devpro.co.uk>
>
>>snip
>
>>Toyed with the idea but as I say, the demand for technical engine
>>articles has almost gone.
>
>I beg to differ here, as would a great many readers of this forum. I agree
>that a magazine entirely full of technical articles probably wouldn't sell,
>but a good in depth technical article every other month, supported by a case
>study, would be well recieved. CCC tries this occasionally, but I feel that
>the articles are over simplified and too short. And recently they never seem
>to follow up anything with actual results, road tests or performance data.
>
>Performance Bikes magazine does a fantastic technical feature every so often,
>where the technical editor (John Robinson) writes a great 3 or 4 page article
>on some aspect of motorcycling. Last month there was a good one on oil
>additives (and why they are a waste of money), another one was on chassis
>geometry and optimising suspension settings, another on how tyres are made,
>how they work and the difference between various manufaturing methods. All
>were well written with a lot of detail, but made both entertaining and
>educational reading. It has to be said that a lot of the readers probably
>don't appreciate these, but the majority do, and as they only appear every so
>often everybody tolerates them.
>
>Surely there is a space for similar articles to appear in a car magazine,
>written by knowledgeable people who have experience in the motor. These could
>be technical, needn't pander to the lowest common denominator, and should
>help
>fire the younger generation's interest.
>
>Just my (off topic) penny's worth.
>-----
>Lewis


I agree there are many people who do still enjoy technical articles but I'm
afraid that going by all the research the magazines do on their target
audience, the majority just turn the page if there are any numbers or graphs on
it. It is sad to see how Fast Car which started off as a "tuning/technical"
magazine has jumped onto the Max Power bandwagon and filled up with topless
totty and dumbed down language.

When I started reading car mags in the 70's it was CCC and Hot Car with
articles by Dave Vizard on how to get 2 more bhp out of your mini by filing the
carb butterflies. I used to buy every magazine every month - still got boxes
and boxes of them going mouldy in the attic. Nowadays I refuse to buy any of
them on principle.

There is very little integrity in the performance car magazine world. If What
Camera etc test something and it is crap they print it is crap. If the latest
bolt on anodised garbage for your car is tested by some of the mags and is crap
they hush it up. I get to know what the real test results were because I know
people in the industry. The bottom line is they don't want to piss off the
advertisers. I know a real world case of an item that caused damage to a test
vehicle and the editor made the journalist play down the article. Someone I
knew bought said article without me knowing and it blew up a very expensive 200
bhp VW golf engine.

Glad you reminded me about John Robinson - he is an excellent engineer and a
long time friend of Dave Walker who also used to be into bikes in a big way.
John was going to do an article about our throttle bodies and their application
in the bike world and I never got back to him about it. Now you have mentioned
him I will give him a bell soon.


Dave Baker at Puma Race Engines (London - England)  - specialist flow
development and engine work. .

From: Dave Baker
Subject: Re: Peugeot 205 1.9 GTi
Date: 17 Feb 1999
Newsgroups: uk.rec.cars.maintenance

>From: jgreystr@hgmp.mrc.ac.uk (Mr. J.S. Greystrong)
>
>what is being measured when the engine
>is allowed to run down without power on the rollers? This is claimed
>to be measuring the transmission losses but I presume it isn't?

Transmission losses are by definition a percentage of the power being fed into
the system. What is being measured on the overrun with no power being fed into
the transmission is anybody's guess. Yours is as good as mine.

I study engine power figures for a living and one thing I do know is that
overrun power losses mean nothing in terms of enabling one to calculate a
flywheel bhp figure. If you want an accurate one of those an engine dyno is the
only way to get it.



>So what's the answer then? Education? Banning the moronic monthlies
>like Max Power? Or do you think that those who splash out 6grand on
>their car without first finding out what they're getting and if it'll
>work deserve everything they get?


The magazines (and how they have "dumbed down" over the last few years are just
responding to consumer demand. These days hardly anyone wants to read about
"how" things work. They just want to know how much, how fast and what colour is
it anodised. A journalist acquaintance of mine who now writes for CCC was told
by the editor not to write any of the cylinder head modification articles he
used to write for his previous magazine because "the punters nowadays don't
understand or give a shit about that sort of thing".

The days of the average owner being able to tinker with his car at weekends are
long gone. When cars had carbs and points and adjustable tappets ordinary
people could understand and maintain them. Nowadays a car is not so dissimilar
from a Hi Fi or TV in the respect that it's electronic components are outside
the scope of the tools or knowledge of Joe Public. As home maintenance has died
out, so has desire to understand the fundamentals. We move closer and closer to
the American craving for instant gratification, quick fix, don't tell me how -
just tell me when and how much.

What this has obscured unfortunately is that underneath the electronics and
management systems a basic car engine is little different to how they were 30
years ago. They still respond therefore to exactly the same things - flow
measurement and improvement to cylinder heads and induction systems, correct
sizing and tuned length of exhausts, time area integral under the valve lift
curve.

Sadly the kids these days think it all happens by means of chips. They have no
comprehension that all the chips do is ensure the timing and mixture is what
the engine wants - exactly what the points and carb did in the past. In the
past they understood that changing the timing or mixture would achieve nothing
if it was already correct and that power came from modifications to the engine.
Now they think you can just "chip it up" to whatever power output the febrile
imagination of some ignorant "engine tuner" has seen fit to advertise.

A fair while back I got a knock at the door from a lad wanting to know if I was
interested in buying a Peugot 205 1.6 gti. I asked if it was standard and he
said "no - it's been chipped up to 160 bhp but the engine hasn't been touched".
Once upon a time I might have wasted some time trying to educate him - as it
was I really couldn't be bothered.

As the knowledge of punters dimishes and the "power claim" frenzy grows and
grows this industry gets worse. I think - to answer your question above - that
everyone who buys anything deserves to get good value for money. Sadly this
happens less often than it did. Punters nowadys no longer have the inate
mechanical knowledge to evaluate what they are being told. 30 years ago it was
common knowledge that 100 bhp per litre was a damn good target for a full race
2 valve per cylinder engine. It still is these days too, but unfortunately,
power claims being what they are, punters think that 100 bhp per litre for a
road car is just a matter of fitting the right chips.

If one firm advertise X bhp for a particular engine then someone else will
advertise X plus 10 and on and on it goes. If you claim realistic power you
don't get any work. In the VW field it has now got to the point where so many
overoptimistic rolling road printouts are reported in the motoring press that
people think that VW publish power outputs that are far too low. Ask someone
what a standard 1800 Golf 8 or 16 valve puts out and they say about 120 bhp for
an 8v and 150 bhp for a 16 v - "and the power goes up and up as they get more
miles on them".

Why - because it is older cars that generally end up getting tinkered with and
they go to a rolling road with a K&N and a set of Splitfires in and get told it
has 120 bhp (or 150 as the case may be).

There was a lovely example in a VW magazine a couple of years back where a
group test of Golfs was run up at a set of rollers I know reads way high. In
fact it reads so high that the proprietor has actually had to REDUCE the
transmission losses he adds to the wheel figure to about 7% just to stay in the
realms of sanity for his flywheel figures.

Anyway - another rant over - I think I'll go and sup a pint or two of Watney's
Red Barrel before bed.




Dave Baker at Puma Race Engines (London - England)  - specialist flow
development and engine work. .

From: Dave Baker
Subject: Re: Peugeot 205 1.9 GTi
Date: 17 Feb 1999
Newsgroups: uk.rec.cars.maintenance

>From: John@divinorum.freeserve.co.uk (John Greystrong)
>
>On 17 Feb 1999 00:45:33 GMT, pumaracing@aol.com (PumaRacing) wrote:
>
>>Transmission losses are by definition a percentage of the power being
>>fed into the system. What is being measured on the overrun with no power
>>being fed into the transmission is anybody's guess. Yours is as good as
>>mine.
>
>I think not ;-)
>
>>
>>The magazines (and how they have "dumbed down" over the last few years
>>are just responding to consumer demand. These days hardly anyone wants
>>to read about "how" things work. They just want to know how much, how
>>fast and what colour is it anodised. A journalist acquaintance of mine
>>who now writes for CCC was told by the editor not to write any of the
>>cylinder head modification articles he used to write for his previous
>>magazine because "the punters nowadays don't understand or give a shit
>>about that sort of thing".
>
>Not Dave Walker?

Yes the very man - I've known him for many years and we did an article together
in about 1987 on valve shapes and their effect on flow on the Pinto engine in
Fast Car. Also my Mk 1 Astra GTE was used for cam tests at about the same time.


> I learnt a lot of stuff when he first started writing
>for Fast Car back when I wasn't embarrassed to buy it. His and David
>Vizards articles, whilst sometimes a bit over my head, are the sort
>of things that you never find nowadays. (especially one memorable
>title to a Vizard piece 'Time me Cam Guru down')

David Vizard is one of the most knowledgeable people on engine theory I've ever
known. He had to emigrate to a warmer climate (California) for health reasons
many years ago and I only meet him rarely when he comes over here. If I have a
particularly thorny engine question I phone him at home in CA and he can always
be relied on to throw light on things.

>
>>What this has obscured unfortunately is that underneath the electronics
>>and management systems a basic car engine is little different to how
>>they were 30 years ago. They still respond therefore to exactly the same
>>things - flow measurement and improvement to cylinder heads and
>>induction systems, correct sizing and tuned length of exhausts, time
>>area integral under the valve lift curve.
>
>(snip)
>
>But isn't it the case that in the good old days you could tinker in
>your garage, swap cams, change exhausts, etc. and usually fiddle with
>the timing/ fueling to increase the power nowadays you can't? Now,
>unless you've got access to an EPROM blower, you're stuck with
>the factory settings meaning a cam swap is pointless without
>a visit to you local specialist. And if you've got to take the car to
>a specialist anyway why not just get them to do the whole job?

Exactly the point I was making yes.


>
>>Anyway - another rant over - I think I'll go and sup a pint or two of
>>Watney's Red Barrel before bed.
>
>But another excellent one. You've not thought of journalism as a
>career move then?
>
>John
>

Toyed with the idea but as I say, the demand for technical engine articles has
almost gone. In truth it is mainly engine theory that interests me. Once I have
solved the technical issues in getting a certain power output from a given
engine, the actual business of building it has little appeal. In an ideal world
I would move into pure research in a company of the same type as Ricardo.


Dave Baker at Puma Race Engines (London - England)  - specialist flow
development and engine work. .

From: Dave Baker
Subject: Re: Exhaust and manifold for Pug 1.9 GTI
Date: 08 Jan 1999
Newsgroups: uk.rec.cars.maintenance

>From: "Lewis Lawrence" <lewis@devpro.co.uk>
>
>>Magnex system was the only one out of 12 exhausts that gained power on a
>>205 in a mag review a few years back.
>
>I don't suppose you can remember which magazine?
>
>Does anybody have any information for performance with either of the
>systems? Or know which back issues of which magazine to buy?

There's one more thing you've got to very much bear in mind when you read this
sort of stuff. Chances are the standard system which gets used as a baseline is
old and clagged up anyway and already a fair bit down on horsepower. The brand
new aftermarket systems get shown in a rather better light than they ought to
because of it.

I used to be quite closely associated with a car magazine journalist and if I
told all the tales about how equipment tests really get conducted I'd get sued
by someone. I remember one item where the engine it was fitted to was ruined
because of a design fault in the item. Power was way down, severe detonation
started and could not be controlled. The editor told the journalist to rewrite
the scathing report because "this firm spends a lot of money advertising with
us and we can't afford to lose it". A year or so later I watched someones
engine disintegrate on the rollers because they had fitted that same item.
Maybe an honest report would have saved that from happening.

Then there was the "25 bhp extra" camshaft from a well know cam manufacturer
for a popular turbo Ford model no longer in production. That actually showed 7
bhp with a couple of other tweaks but the adverts still ran the same old blurb.

Most magazine car tests are done on cars owned by the staff, friends of the
staff etc. When a particular bit is worn out on someone's car (like the shock
absorbers) you suddenly get a test of those items for that type of vehicle. All
the manufacturers donate the items free of charge for the publicity it gains
and then they get parcelled out after the test to various needy people. The
magazines don't of course want to spend a penny of their own money making sure
that the standard components are in tip top condition to make the comparisons
fair.

Do I sound cynical ?? - yeah, just a bit.

Buyer beware as they say and don't believe everything you see in print.


Dave Baker at Puma Race Engines (London - England)  - specialist flow
development and engine work. .